Pseudonyms are used throughout this article. The authors’ interviews with hunt saboteurs and police officers were carried out on condition of anonymity.
Alison joined her local hunt saboteur group in her late 30s after seeing an anti-fox hunting stall at a local festival. At that time she had “no idea” that fox hunting was still taking place across the UK, despite it having been illegal in England and Wales since 2005 – and earlier in Scotland.
Alison has since made strong friendships through “sabbing” which, she admits, has become “close to almost an obsession” for her:
It’s normally a Saturday … We dress up. We make sure our camera batteries are charged, all the equipment is ready. We get into the sabotage cars, go to the location … and basically follow them in the field. The name of the game is to keep an eye on the hunt at all times with cameras, and observe what they are doing.
Numerous hunt saboteurs across the UK follow this routine throughout each fox hunting season, which runs from September to May. Time spent in the field following the hunt can be strained and perilous. “We drag each other out of the mud … and keep each other’s back,” Alison says.
Saboteurs deliberately attempt to disrupt the hunt, placing themselves in dangerous situations, often on foot as they run after hunters on horseback. As tensions run high, threats and physical assaults can come from both sides of this long-standing argument. With some hunts now regularly employing private security, the levels of violence have reportedly escalated.
Our research on the changing nature of hunt sabotage is part of a broader study of “citizen-led policing”. We see this as a contemporary phenomenon in many different walks of life – from antisocial behaviour in neighbourhoods to acquisitive retail crime – whereby concerned citizens take action against what they regard as security issues which are not being adequately addressed. In some instances, the boundaries between concerned citizens acting with good intentions and vigilantism can become blurred.
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In our conversations with saboteurs spanning the last three hunting seasons, many have reported being threatened by hunt members and supporters, physically assaulted, vehicles damaged, followed home, doxxed online and dead animals left at their properties. But what keeps them coming back, according to Stuart, is a unifying commitment to ending the “cruelty” of fox hunting: “Everything stems from that, and we must never lose sight of that.”
‘The law needs revisiting’
Lizzie is a middle-class professional working full-time in a demanding job. But she spends much of her spare time roaming farmland in the south of England, disrupting fox hunts and gathering evidence of law breaking.
In this sense, Lizzie is typical of many hunt saboteurs we have encountered in our research. She reflects a move away from hunt sabotage as an activity often seen as a clash of classes – a working-class struggle against upper-class hunt groups. She explains:
For a long time, hunt sabs were just seen as hippies that don’t work; just these nutty animal rights extremists. [But] there’s nurses, there’s social workers, there’s an electrician – we’re all working, we’re all in responsible jobs … I think the police are coming around to thinking this isn’t a class issue. [We] are just looking for the law to be upheld.
Twenty years after Tony Blair’s government brought in the initial ban on hunting wild mammals with dogs under the Hunting Act (2004), Labour’s 2024 election manifesto included a promise to ban trail hunting in England and Wales, in order to end the “smokescreen” that both police and saboteurs claim allows illegal hunting to continue.
This has been followed through as part of the government’s new animal welfare strategy, launched on December 22. A public consultation will be held at the start of 2026 to seek views on the precise details of the ban, with the government yet to give a timeline for its introduction.
The existing powers afforded to the police regarding fox hunting have been described by senior police officer Matt Longman as a “leaky sieve”. In 2023, Longman, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on fox hunting crime, described the current Hunting Act as “not working effectively”, and claimed that “the simplest reason for the lack of prosecution is that the law needs revisiting”.
History of hunt saboteurs
The origins of hunt sabotage in the UK are not clear. There is some evidence that a group called Band of Mercy sabotaged shooting rifles in 1883. Around the same time, members of the Humanitarian League are said to have followed hunts to expose cruel practices.
According to the Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA), the first documented saboteur in England was a man called Harrison who disrupted a grouse shoot on the Duke of Rutland’s land in 1893 and was arrested for trespassing. The first modern hunt sabotage took place in 1958, when members of the League Against Cruel Sports laid false trails to disrupt a stag hunt in the Devon and Somerset area.
In the 1970s and ‘80s, hunt saboteur groups were associated with anarchist movements and the punk music scene, as well as anti-vivisectionists. But according to Kat, that image of hunt saboteurs is a far cry from today’s saboteurs:
[Hunt supporters] push this theory that sabs are uneducated, unemployed, unwashed hippies. But it’s really interesting, the diverse group of people that belong to anti-hunting campaigning. You can have anyone from doctors, nurses, veterinary professionals, teachers – even farmers. I just don’t think [the hunters] would ever in a million years believe that I’m in a high-powered role in my industry.
Stuart, a member of a sabotage group in the south of England, is quick to distinguish the highly organised approach his group takes from some others operating today:
Some saboteur groups aren’t very organised. They’ve got these anarchic principles they work to … I believe in having large numbers, well trained, a structured training programme – and everyone knowing what they’re doing. It just seems to work.
Stuart raises concerns about new recruits being overly motivated by political concerns – people he describes as “class warriors” interested only in violence against an upper-class enemy:
I like to meet people to make sure they want to be in the group for all the right reasons, because sometimes you do get class warriors … It’s happened in some groups before. It’s not nice: someone’s turned up, gone out on their first or second hit, they’ve just gone up and whacked a huntsman and pulled him off his horse … You can’t do that.
A legacy of mistrust
The history of hunt sabotage is beset by violence against saboteurs by hunt members and supporters. Incidents of serious violence against saboteurs are perceived within the movement as going largely unpunished, with instances of saboteurs being killed or seriously injured having led to short custodial or suspended sentences – or, often, no prosecutions against hunt members and supporters at all.
Some of the most high-profile and controversial forms of protest on the issue of fox hunting have arguably been perpetrated by hunt supporters. In 2004, eight supporters stormed the House of Commons during a debate on hunting, disguising themselves as builders before confronting MPs. They received an 18-month custodial discharge, with the judge finding no evidence that their actions had resulted in either harassment or distress. In 2009, Lush Cosmetics stores were vandalised and staff verbally abused after the company worked alongside the HSA as part of an anti-fox hunting campaign.
Hunt saboteurs’ mistrust of the state was cemented further when the full scale of the undercover infiltration of saboteur groups by police officers was revealed during the spy cops scandal, which emerged in 2010. Several officers who infiltrated saboteur groups have been accused of inciting others to commit crimes and forming romantic relationships with saboteurs, all the while concealing their real identity. Saboteurs largely retain a deep mistrust of the state, as Stuart explains:
There is distrust … the Old Bill haven’t always helped themselves. In the '90s, they were infiltrating groups like ours – committing statutory rape [on some] female activists [and we] haven’t forgotten about that … It’s diabolical, absolutely sick. So that’s the sort of thing that lingers on.
This deeply embedded sense of suspicion and antipathy from hunt saboteurs towards the police continues to affect relationships between the two – despite the fact they share, in theory at least, a common pursuit of holding fox hunters accountable to the law. Where positive relationships have been forged, the role of individual police officers has been key – overcoming decades of saboteur-police antipathy to build new alliances.
Reflecting on the support provided by saboteurs during prosecutions of hunts flouting the law, Dan, a police wildlife crime officer, tells us simply: “Without [saboteur] involvement, we’d have no chance.”
Forging unlikely alliances
At first, Kat is reluctant to meet us. We had been put in touch with her by James, a police wildlife crime officer with whom Kat had worked to bring about a hunt prosecution. When she finally agrees to meet us with her partner Carl, also a saboteur, they recount experiencing years of mistreatment at the hands of police officers, and of police protecting hunts while still treating saboteurs as the ones breaking the law.
After one particularly bad experience with the police – when they reported being threatened and having damage done to their vehicle – a friend and former saboteur put them in contact with James. Kat says he “really had his work cut out” with regards to building any sort of relationship with her and Carl.
James asked if they could share any footage of the hunting they had witnessed that season. With low expectations, they agreed to share what they had gathered and James drew on this footage to pursue and ultimately secure the conviction of hunt members. This success was a significant turning point for Kat in recognising there might be mutual benefits in working with the police. She calls James “the first police officer I’ve ever had anything positive to say about”, explaining:
He’s the first police officer that’s actually taken the time to very neutrally listen to what we have to say and look at the footage we’ve had. I have very low standards for the police … but he’s the first cop that’s ever done that.
At the time of the prosecution against the hunt, Kat had preferred to hide her saboteur identity in order to separate this from her professional life – particularly as she worked in a role which brought her into contact with rural businesses. Acknowledging these concerns, James agreed to put measures in place to make Kat and Carl feel safe at home. Kat explains:
James gave us personal protection alarms and alarms for the home, so that if we pressed the button we got an instant response, with the knowledge that we were witnesses.
Ultimately, the prosecution succeeded, giving Kat a sense that times really are changing. “Seeing the actual hunts coming to justice,” she says, “it does feel that maybe the tides are changing.”
Carl echoes this sentiment: “I’m not a fan of the police but I do feel that getting convictions against hunts is the way forward. It makes it very, very visible to the public, and to the government.”
Both Kat and Carl still view James as “one in a million” within the police. As Carl puts it: “If it had been any other copper, it wouldn’t have even got to court. They wouldn’t have wanted the evidence.”
And while Kat continues to bear the psychological scars of having been let down and mistreated by the police, she does sound slightly more hopeful about the potential for future collaboration with like-minded police officers:
If there are more officers like James out there who actually want to do their job, then hopefully we can play a key part in closing multiple hunts down or getting more and more convictions.
The 'smokescreen’
Many police officers told us that collaborating with saboteurs is the only path towards enforcing the law against fox hunting. A combination of low investigatory resources, the difficulties of meeting evidential thresholds, and the resources that hunt members and supporters can bring to bear during court proceedings reduces the prospect of successful prosecution at every stage. As James put it:
I honestly think there is a need for [the saboteurs]. The hunts wouldn’t like me to say that – my boss probably wouldn’t like me to say that – but if the hunts were [only] trail hunting, there would be no need for the sabs at all.
The formulation of the UK’s current Hunting Act (2004) is also challenging. The legislation contains exemptions which allow for trail hunting – a practice only introduced after the act was passed. Using pre-laid scent trails which simulate real hunting is considered a compromise to allow the foxhound packs to be kept and traditions to continue in a way that is legally compliant. The law, however, does not make any provision for the accidental killing of a fox by hounds, making it difficult to prove a kill during a trail hunt was not accidental.
Anti-hunt groups have long accused trail hunting of being a legal loophole used to hide continued fox hunting. In 2020, a leaked webinar held by The Hunting Office, the sport’s now-defunct governing body, saw leading huntsman Mark Hankinson explaining: “It’s a lot easier to create a smokescreen if you’ve got more than one trail layer operating. That is what it is all about – trying to portray to the people watching that you’re going about your legitimate business.”
Hankinson was initially convicted of encouraging people to hunt illegally in October 2021, receiving a £1,000 fine, but later won an appeal against his conviction. According to Hankinson, his leaked words had in fact been referring to the practice of laying dummy trails to fool saboteurs – and the appeal judge accepted that the Hunting Office was committed to lawful hunting.
According to the police officers we spoke to, working alongside hunt saboteurs and using their evidence to build a case against any hunt that is breaching the law is critical to the likelihood of a successful prosecution.
According to James, the resources available to some saboteur groups can outstrip those available to the police when building up such evidence. “They use drones, they use cameras, they use bodycams,” he explained. “Their tactics obviously have worked because we’ve had quite a few convictions around the country.”
Saboteurs are not subject to the same legal stipulations as the police with regard to evidence capture. While the police must abide by the Regulations of Investigatory Powers Act (2000), which places a series of limits on the police’s capacity to carry out covert surveillance, saboteurs can operate with much more flexibility, including covert filming of illegal hunting. So long as saboteurs do not break the law in capturing their footage, their evidence can be used to support prosecutions.
Working with evidence captured by saboteurs also allows the police to pursue creative avenues for action. In some cases, they have been able to draw on measures designed to tackle antisocial behaviour as a mechanism to address issues linked to hunting – often referred to as “hunt havoc” – such as hounds running into private gardens or through school fields, as well as hunts blocking roads.
Police accused of bias by both sides
Police officers still find themselves navigating a complex terrain of suspicion, paranoia and sometimes outright hostility from saboteur groups. Even James, with successful prosecutions behind him and examples of productive collaborations with hunt saboteurs, reflected that:
Short of giving them a kidney, I don’t think they’ll ever fully [trust the police] … I think across the country it is changing and there are lots of prosecutions going through. But the past has tainted things with the sabs, unfortunately.
He admitted that some saboteurs will flatly refuse to work with him, despite repeatedly trying to explain to saboteur groups that their refusal to engage with police is counter-productive.
I’ve said to them: ‘If you don’t report it then it doesn’t look like it’s happened and then nothing’s going to ever happen.’ You can spend all your time slagging the police off and putting all over Facebook how rubbish the police are, but if you’re not reporting it to us, then it doesn’t look like an issue.
While these feelings are rooted in historical controversies, more recent scandals have reinforced accusations of police preferential treatment towards hunts. In 2024, senior officers in the Warwickshire police force were accused of agreeing a “secret deal” with the Warwickshire Hunt, after potential court proceedings against it were averted following a protocol agreed between senior officers and the hunt.
While an independent report later found that Warwickshire Police had acted with “clear operational independence” when dealing with the hunt, some rural crime officers were angry at what they alleged to Channel 4 reporters were senior officers in the force giving it preferential treatment and “deciding which laws to enforce and which ones not to”.
The contents of the protocol were only exposed after a campaign by saboteurs and local residents, who demanded that the policing of the hunt should be transparent. The protocol has since been dropped, and Warwickshire Police’s incoming chief constable, Alex Franklin-Smith, committed to seeking advice from other forces regarding trail hunting, which he said can be “a challenging area for policing”. But he added that when it comes to fox hunting: “Warwickshire Police will operate without fear or favour.”
Accusations of double standards are levelled at police from both sides of the hunt dispute. In recent years, hunt members and their supporters have frequently accused forces of lacking neutrality when policing fox hunting, with claims of biased practices levelled at some officers.
Matt Longman, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on fox hunting, has been subject to regular criticism from hunt supporters, some of whom have described him as an “activist” who displays “blatant prejudice” against hunting. A number of politicians have called for his removal, with former defence secretary Sir Ben Wallace commenting in 2024: “[Longman] is supposed to police without fear or favour. If he can’t then he should be removed, because that is part of this debate about two-tier policing.”
In fact, both the Hunt Saboteurs Association and the British Hound Sports Association have accused the police of two-tier policing in their approach to fox hunting – but the police officers we spoke to refuted accusations of bias on either side. Wildlife crime officer Dan said that while his job is “to uphold the law without fear or favour … the hunt [lobby] obviously massively think that I am anti-hunt”. He explained:
I hate the term ‘two-tier policing’ for obvious reasons … The hunting fraternity believe they are more entitled than others, and that does remain an issue. You can see that in some of the complaints we get.
A 2020 report by campaign group Action Against Foxhunting found evidence of police officers regularly turning a blind eye to law-breaking by hunts. In a foreword to the report, former police officer and animal cruelty investigator Richard Barradale-Smith wrote:
The systemic failure in dealing with hunting crimes since the hunting act came into force has been deliberate. The legislation introduced was designed to make the act virtually unenforceable and successive chief constables and senior officers across the country have chosen to turn a blind eye to it ever since. This places many frontline officers sent to deal with those incidents in an impossible position.
James, Dan and the other officers we spoke to all acknowledge that the legacy of poor police practices has created a deep institutional mistrust of the police among hunt saboteurs. They also accept that some poor police practices continue, and that, as James puts it, saboteurs “don’t always get the best service from the police” – which can undermine relationships carefully built between individual officers and saboteur groups.
But they were unanimous in saying that police-saboteur collaboration is the foundation from which successful convictions of illegal fox hunting must be built, as saboteur evidence is almost always the trigger that starts an investigation. The HSA has recognised this, claiming that in the last five years, all convictions of hunt groups have been the result of evidence gathered by saboteurs.
Yet for all the successful convictions described to us in our research, many more examples were recounted of investigations being discontinued for a variety of reasons.
Meanwhile, the new fox hunting season is well under way. In the last season, there were a reported 411 incidents of foxes being chased or killed by hounds – a figure that some campaigners told us barely scratches the surface. This, inevitably, causes frustration for all involved and, at times, tests the fragile alliances between police and saboteurs.
Whatever happens while Labour is in power regarding the prospective ban on trail hunting, saboteurs tell us they will not leave the field until they are confident that no animal will be hunted and killed again. Continuing their complicated alliance with some police officers will be a key step in achieving this goal.
For you: more from our Insights series:
Amy Stevens receives funding from The Leverhulme Trust.
Keith Spiller receives funding from The Leverhulme Trust.
Xavier L'Hoiry receives funding from The Leverhulme Trust.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
